President Donald Trump on Monday hurled sharp criticism at Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, accusing him of engaging in "illegal and treasonous" activity.
The president trained his ire on Rosenstein -- a member of his own administration -- and two bygone officials from the Trump Justice Department, former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in a pair of morning tweets.
"Wow, so many lies by now disgraced acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He was fired for lying, and now his story gets even more deranged. He and Rod J. Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught," Trump wrote. "This was the illegal and treasonous 'insurance policy' in full action!"
Trump was apparently referring to comments McCabe has made recently, amid a media blitz ahead of the release of his book about working in Trump's administration. McCabe told CBS News' 60 Minutes that he and Rosenstein discussed removing Trump from office through the 25th Amendment, and the possibility of Rosenstein wearing a wire to "collect evidence" about the president's motivation for firing former FBI Director James Comey.
"To be fair, it was an unbelievably stressful time," McCabe said in the interview. "I can't even describe for you how many things must have been coursing through the deputy attorney general's mind at that point. So it was really something that he kinda threw out in a very frenzied chaotic conversation about where we were and what we needed to do next."
Rosenstein has disputed this allegation, which The Washington Post has previously reported. The Justice Department also issued a carefully parsed response to the 60 Minutes interview, writing that Rosenstein "never authorized" any recording of the president and that he wasn't "in a position to consider invoking the 25th Amendment."
McCabe also said in the Sunday interview that a "crime may have been committed" when Trump fired the head of the FBI and tried to publicly undermine an investigation into his campaign's ties to Russia.
McCabe said the FBI had good reason to open a counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump was in league with Russia, and therefore a possible national security threat, after the May 2017 firing of Comey.
"And the idea is, if the president committed obstruction of justice, fired the director of the of the FBI to negatively impact or to shut down our investigation of Russia's malign activity and possibly in support of his campaign, as a counterintelligence investigator you have to ask yourself, "Why would a president of the United States do that?" McCabe said. "So all those same sorts of facts cause us to wonder is there an inappropriate relationship, a connection between this president and our most fearsome enemy, the government of Russia?"
Fox News Channel contributor Dan Bongino appeared on Fox & Friends on Monday morning and said of the McCabe interview, "What was laid out last night ... was a coup attempt on the president of the United States."
Trump tweeted Bongino's quote, adding, "True!"
McCabe's book and recent interviews have reignited the long-running feud between Trump and one of his top Justice Department officials, and at least one senator has taken up the president's case. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Sunday that his panel would investigate McCabe's comments about the 25th Amendment.
"The deputy attorney general was basically trying to do an administrative coup," Graham said on CBS's Face the Nation.
Rosenstein told people close to him that he plans to leave the Justice Department if a new attorney general is confirmed, The Post reported in January. William Barr was confirmed as attorney general last week.
The Justice Department declined to comment, and the White House did not respond to questions about the president's tweets and Rosenstein's future.
Information for this article was contributed by Reis Thebault of The Washington Post and Eric Tucker of The Associated Press.
A Section on 02/19/2019